Yes, I haven't posted anything here in ages; no, I don't feel like giving a news report about what's been going on for me. But here's something I wrote for "The Sweet Glam Forum" message board and I thought I'd also post it here just to see if anyone can relate to it.

(The subject was people who prefer to listen to the music of their youth 30 years ago rather than newer music)



Outlying datapoints:

With the exception of Sweet (which is a fairly new exception) I like new (new-to-me) music as much as the music of 25-30 years ago.

Even as far as Sweet are concerned a good deal of the thrill for me is discovering what they've been up to since I stopped paying attention in 1979, rediscovering how the old stuff sounds to me with decades' more "music appreciation experience," and noticing the influences and counter-influences between old and new musical styles.

For example I'm fascinated at how some of the Andy Scott's Sweet songs (I'm thinking especially of "Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again" and "Mind," to give two widely disparate examples) incorporate New Wave and other later-than-1970s musical styles without actually *being* "New Wave."

Also, the original band ranged through so many musical styles in a decade and pushed the envelope on most of them -- I guess we now know that the way it went down wasn't good for their careers, but I think it makes for an unusual depth in their music.

Which is why I wanted to cringe when, in an Andy Scott interview I came across recently, he said something along the lines that there were only so many notes in a musical scale and so one runs out of things to do after a while.

I don't make a living off my creativity so I don't have any right to criticize, but it made me sad. I wanted to send him a box of world music.